New Tropes vs Women video is out (Women as Background Decoration pt. 2)

F

Fracas

#fuckonami
Video here.

Definitely watching this later.

edit: Lime brought up rules from the last thread:

For your reference, here's a brief list of things that aren't particularly relevant to discussion here:
-these videos take a long time
-these videos probably cost less than $140k to make
-these videos/the Kickstarter are making/made Sarkeesian money
-these videos are only presenting Sarkeesian's side of the argument
-Sarkeesian wears makeup/earrings/whatever
-Sarkeesian turned off comments to her videos
-Sarkeesian wants to make money
-Sarkeesian is not a being of pure virtue, making videos solely to help humanity with no gain accruing to herself
-Sarkeesian likes/wants attention/death threats/whatever

We'd like to strongly recommend that if one of the above is your contribution to the thread, you either come up with something relevant to say, or not bother. Note that this list is not exhaustive. Thank you.
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Check the post below for all games mentioned. Probably nothing too spoilery but just in case.
 
cool thanks.

GAMES REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE:
Assassin’s Creed 2 (2009)
Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood (2010)
Bioshock (2007)
Bioshock 2 (2010)
Dead Island (2011)
Dishonored (2012)
Dragon Age: Origins (2009)
Fable 2 (2008)
Far Cry 3 (2012)
God of War 3 (2008)
Grand Theft Auto IV (2008)
Grand Theft Auto V (2013)
Hitman: Absolution (2012)
Hitman: Blood Money (2006)
Kane & Lynch (2007)
L.A. Noire (2011)
Mafia II: Joe’s Adventures (2010)
Metro: Last Light (2013)
No More Heroes (2008)
Papo & Yo (2012)
Prototype (2009)
Red Dead Redemption (2010)
Saints Row (2006)
Super Mario Galaxy 2 (2010)
The Darkness II (2012)
The Witcher (2007)
The Witcher 2 (2011)
Thief (2014)
Watch Dogs (2014)
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here we go again
 
Guidelines from last Tropes vs Women thread should be in the OP:

Mod Edit:
For your reference, here's a brief list of things that aren't particularly relevant to discussion here:
-these videos take a long time
-these videos probably cost less than $140k to make
-these videos/the Kickstarter are making/made Sarkeesian money
-these videos are only presenting Sarkeesian's side of the argument
-Sarkeesian wears makeup/earrings/whatever
-Sarkeesian turned off comments to her videos
-Sarkeesian wants to make money
-Sarkeesian is not a being of pure virtue, making videos solely to help humanity with no gain accruing to herself
-Sarkeesian likes/wants attention/death threats/whatever

We'd like to strongly recommend that if one of the above is your contribution to the thread, you either come up with something relevant to say, or not bother. Note that this list is not exhaustive. Thank you.
Click to expand...
 
I wish she had sat on this for a week or two. It seems like she's releasing the video into a particularly hate-filled zeitgeist and things might get ugly :(
 
Oxymoron said:
I wish she had sat on this for a week or two. It seems like she's releasing the video into a particularly hate-filled zeitgeist and things might get ugly :(
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To her and others who speak up against the contemporary status quo in video games, things are always ugly and they are always targeted for harassment and discrimination and oppression. Just because you view the situation differently based on last week's heinous affairs, doesn't mean that situation is any different for the ones facing harassment and resistance by sexist people. I'm just saying that releasing it now or later doesn't matter for exposed targets like her.
 
DSN2K said:
I'm bothered by the closed comments on youtube and their site.

For me that gives a direct response that they feel their content isnt subjective or debatable but fact. Meaning I wont be viewing it in its entirety or discussing it further what's unfortunate because they have gone to some level of effort to build a case.

oh well.
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I would imagine it's a lot more to do with the fact that youtube commenters are the scum of the earth and would contribute nothing in terms of discussion. Especially with the subject at hand.
 
Oxymoron said:
I wish she had sat on this for a week or two. It seems like she's releasing the video into a particularly hate-filled zeitgeist and things might get ugly :(
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What makes this current day/week particularly hate-filled?
 
Calling out period-piece games seems extremely off-base, especially ones rooted in some sort of historical accuracy.
 
Cool. Excited to see this one. I thought the first part did a great job.

One of the things I like about these videos is that she often targets good games. It'd be easy to say any game that fails a particular test is bad. It's more nuanced to say that things that are good (or even great) can still be problematic -- and could be improved if the developers recognize their blind spots.
 
Damn, she got a lot of examples already. It really sours the mood when you consider how many times there's an eroticized character in front of the player who gets brutally slaughtered. It's a weird and disgusting fetish of sex and violence.
 
I enjoy watching Sarkeesian's videos and find them to be very an insightful and interesting observation on the big picture, rather than choosing to get hung up on semantics.
 
entrydenied said:
What makes this current day/week particularly hate-filled?
Click to expand...

The Zoe Quinn/Phil Fish thing, and the awful Sarkeesian Exposed Patreon those two neckbeards set up to harass her.

She always brings out the worst in the internet, but this week feels particularly fraught.
 
Morrigan Stark said:
Which ones, other than AssCreed or RDR?
...lol
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Having studied frontier America, I would say Red Dead Redemption's depiction is pretty accurate for a video game.

"Historical accuracy" doesn't mean I'm saying John Marston is based upon a real person. I'm referring to the setting.

You can laugh it off if you want, but that's not an argument in anyway. It's just a childish response.
 
oh man that Far Cry 3 scene is just mind-numbingly dumb and excessive. It doesn't seem to serve no purpose at all and it is executed incredibly poorly. And I could imagine it's entirely arbitrary and has no relevance to the actual story in the game.

If you aren't up to the task of depicting misogynistic prostitution with death threats etc., then you probably shouldn't do it.
 
Halfway through -- you guys are missing the point a bit, regardless of whether or not it's a period piece.

A lot of these games are using, as per her words, "casual cruelty implemented as an easy way to deliver a quick emotional punch to the player, by presenting attacks on characters specifically designed to appear pitifully vulnerable".
 
Lime said:
oh man that Far Cry 3 scene is just mind-numbingly dumb and excessive. It doesn't seem to serve no purpose at all and it is executed incredibly poorly. And I could imagine it's entirely arbitrary and has no relevance to the actual story in the game.

If you aren't up to the task of depicting misogynistic prostitution with death threats etc., then you probably shouldn't do it.
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If it's the one I'm thinking of then yeah it's totally out of place and really soured me on the game.
 
hawk2025 said:
Halfway through -- you guys are missing the point a bit, regardless of whether or not it's a period piece.

A lot of these games are using, as per her words, "casual cruelty implemented as an easy way to deliver a quick emotional punch to the player, by presenting attacks on characters specifically designed to appear pitifully vulnerable".
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So what about the numerous examples of the same things done to men in video games?

I'm not saying there aren't fair examples, like that Far Cry 3 one, especially, either.
 
Oxymoron said:
The Zoe Quinn/Phil Fish thing, and the awful Sarkeesian Exposed Patreon those two neckbeards set up to harass her.

She always brings out the worst in the internet, but this week feels particularly fraught.
Click to expand...
Googled it and isn't that just some documentary? As long as they don't harass anyone I don't see a problem with that.
 
Squalor said:
So what about the numerous examples of the same things done to men in video games?
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What about them?

They exist, sure. But they aren't a tenth as sexualized, or depicted as hopeless, in my 28 years of experience with videogames.


Regarding the Far Cry 3 scene: Yes, it's completely random and out of place during the game. Really bizarre.
 
I love these videos, not so much for the content but that it gets a good dialogue going. I can't wait for the YT responses, good and bad.
 
hawk2025 said:
What about them?

They exist, sure. But they aren't a tenth as sexualized, or depicted as hopeless, in my 28 years of experience with videogames.
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There are plenty of hopeless men in Red Dead Redemption.

And you can hogtie anyone in the game, not just women, not just prostitutes.
 
Oxymoron said:
The Zoe Quinn/Phil Fish thing, and the awful Sarkeesian Exposed Patreon those two neckbeards set up to harass her.

She always brings out the worst in the internet, but this week feels particularly fraught.
Click to expand...

When I think if anything, events such as these should spur her to perform ever better and faster, not delay her video releases.
Squalor said:
There are plenty of hopeless men in Red Dead Redemption.

And you can hogtie anyone in the game, not just women, not just prostitutes.
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Those men are however not sexualised though.
 
Squalor said:
There are plenty of hopeless men in Red Dead Redemption.

And you can hogtie anyone in the game, not just women, not just prostitutes.
Click to expand...



So?

The discussion over the hogtie mechanic was discussed on the past video, and it actually focused on how you are given an achievement for hogtying a woman and placing her in train tracks.

And this is the whole point: Of course there are also men put in these situations. But the fact is that many, many games use sexualized women as cheap devices to characterize villains as evil or to set up ambience -- not in complete, well-written ways, but as cheap exploitation.
 
im tired of the tropes vs men come on all extremely good looking, have the life anyone would want, have a body that would even make stallone turn an say "ooooo thatz prety gewd". Give me reality, give me a man slightly over weight who doesnt care about his hygiene and never gets the girl because nice guys finish last. Im tired of these stereo types and these must change in gaming!!!!!!
 
Yet another great video, who the fuck would make the claim of women not being harassed would make the game unbelievable though?
 
She makes good points, and I can see why she chooses the videogame medium to denounce these tropes. But the real problem goes beyond just videogames being the picture perfect conception of immature male fantasies. Movies have been doing this forever, because people have been like this forever.

It's sad but true.
 
JK-Money said:
im tired of the tropes vs men come on all extremely good looking, have the life anyone would want, have a body that would even make stallone turn an say "ooooo thatz prety gewd". Give me reality, give me a man slightly over weight who doesnt care about his hygiene and never gets the girl because nice guys finish last. Im tired of these stereo types and these must change in gaming!!!!!!
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Kane and Lynch was kinda this, except for the nice guy stuff.
 
Oxymoron said:
The Zoe Quinn/Phil Fish thing, and the awful Sarkeesian Exposed Patreon those two neckbeards set up to harass her.

She always brings out the worst in the internet, but this week feels particularly fraught.
Click to expand...

My disgust with this whole witchhunt led me to delete my KnowYourMeme account (it was a good place to collect gifs, join this site and watch an Anita Sarkeesian video.

Come at me, bros!
 
Good for her putting it out in this of all weeks. Remarkable lack of fear, this lady.

Looking forward to watching it later.
 
(didn't realize that there were two threads :/)

All those open world games look really embarrassing in how they handle things, but something about the way that Far Cry 3 so casually does the open world "reset" at the end of the scene makes it look even more egregious.
 
HawthorneKitty said:
Yet another great video, who the fuck would make the claim of women not being harassed would make the game unbelievable though?
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Weirdos who want a very specific type of selective realism that reproduces certain negative aspects of history and/or present day problems in a setting that's otherwise very stylized.

It's sort of like a dungeon master who insists that female characters take a penalty to their strength score in a world with hit points, dragons, magical swords, and heroes who potentially lay the smackdown on gods and demons.
 
Rapier said:
She makes good points, and I can see why she chooses the videogame medium to denounce these tropes. But the real problem goes beyond just videogames being the picture perfect conception of immature male fantasies. Movies have been doing this forever, because people have been like this forever.

It's sad but true.
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She has plenty of videos dealing with movies.
 
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